


A Book of First Chapters

by KonekoYasha



Category: Logan Lucky (2017), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alpha Clyde Logan, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Star Wars Setting, Crossover, Dark Rey (Star Wars), Empress Rey, F/M, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Omega Rey
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-11
Updated: 2019-04-17
Packaged: 2020-01-11 21:57:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18432908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KonekoYasha/pseuds/KonekoYasha
Summary: Unable to focus on a single plot-line, KonekoYasha posts the first chapter of several Rey/Kylo plot bunnies that just  won't let her rest.Chapter One - Alpha of Boone County - The A/B/O Logan Lucky / Star Wars crossover that no one asked for.  Now has a second chapter in a separate post.Chapter Two - Don't Say I Never Gave You Anything - Han and Chewie doubled checked the Western Reaches and found more than the Falcon.Chapter Three - All for One - Kylo will find that the Dark will not easily let loose its claim on Rey.





	1. Alpha of Boone County

**Author's Note:**

> There hasn't been an Alpha in Boone County for decades... until now.

Alpha of Boone County  
Chapter 1: Better Late than Never

His mouth was bone dry and he was sure he had a name but the mule that must’a kicked him had knocked it straight outta his head. Or maybe he lost it tumbling down the mountain ‘cause that was the only thing he could think of that would make him hurt this damn bad ALL OVER, but none of that really mattered right now. 

He had to find Her and get safe. There were too many people NOT her around. Too many burning smells and liquid tar coating every sense; his tongue was sandpaper and the air felt like mud suffocating him under its weight. He tried to open his eyes, but they were glued shut or sumpten, and his right arm wouldn’t move more than a few inches and the left wouldn’t move a’tall. 

“He’s coming up again,” a soft voice he felt he should know said in a mild panic. He didn’t like the way the anguished voice was like acid down his throat, but that had to come secondary to finding Her.

“Now Clyde, ya gotta stay calm. You ain’t helpin’ nutten by pitching a fit like this.”

Clyde. He was Clyde, and he had to get outta here and he didn’t appreciate much for this male tellin’ him what to do. The growl startled him at first, then he realized it was coming from him.

“Dammnit, Clyde!” the first voice said, the once soft voice raising in volume to somethin’ that most would take note not to cross. “They cain’t give you any more drugs and you keep breathin’. You gotta stay down!”

It was the genuine fear in her voice that got his eyes unstuck. He couldn’t abide it being on his account. The face that came into view was purdy and sad and Clyde felt real upset that she had ruined her makeup with cryin’ over him. That kinda thing shouldn’t happen.

“ ‘Em sorry,” he croaked out, though he won’t sure why he was sorry exactly, but he knew he was. This was his fault, he was sure.

“Well, at least he’s makin’ more sense.”

Clyde slid his gaze over and growled at the male again, the sound being reflexive but most assuredly intentional now.

“Now don’t start that again! It’s me Clyde, Jimmy, your brother. I’m not tryin’ to do nutten but help.”

Clyde ignored him for now knowing the truth when he heard it. He looked down at his right wrist, his head bobin’ like a doll on a dashboard and took in the padded restraint there. Clyde then looked over to his left and found his arm completely gone. For a moment he was back in Iraq and feared that he had only imagined havin’ somethin’ left after the explosion. Slowly he realized that he did still have his left arm, minus a hand, but it was fastened to his side and chest with a mess of bandages and straps, completely immobile.

Clyde didn’t bother looking before yanking with all his might against the restraint on his right wrist. He heard it tare, but it hadn’t come loose yet.

“Shit!”

The male claiming to be his brother leapt to hold the arm down while the lady put all her slight weight against his left shoulder tryin’ to keep it flat to the head of the bed. She slid across the floor as he sat up proper in the semi reclined bed, her efforts not amounting to much to stop him.

“Please Clyde!” she cried out, tears running more mascara down her cheeks.

Knowing she posed no threat or real hindrance to him leavin’, Clyde refocused on the male and glared into his frightened face. 

“Git outta m’ way,” he snarled lowly, his accent slipping even further with emotion into Mommy’s high mountain. The male cut his eyes to the side and offered his neck as he should but didn’t let go of the forearm.

“They are gonna shoot you if you go after her again,” the male intreated. His distress a heavy weight against Clyde’s will, but he had a deeper call he couldn’t ignore. These two could take care of themselves, they always had and always would. Clyde didn’t get a chance to force the male’s full submission before a heavenly voice skimmed down his spine.

“You must be having a laugh if you think you are going to keep me from him.”

Closer… Closer… She was coming closer… He couldn’t smell Her yet, but he could feel it in his bones. 

“Ma’am, it’s for your own protection.”

Protection? His blood froze. What had happened? What was happenin’? She needed him and he was stuck here! 

With a roar, Clyde yanked, his arm came free and the male came with it, tumbling over the bed to land on floor on the other side. When Clyde tried to swing his feet outta the bed, he found they wouldn’t move for the belts across his thighs and the buckles at his ankles holdin’ him in place.

The door crashed open so forcefully it bounced off the wall to almost go fully closed again, but the Avenging Angel slammed the heal of Her hand into it to stop it. The Hell’s fury rolling off Her made him whine from deep inside his soul, prayin’ She weren’t mad at him. She was so, so displeased and it tore him clean up. It wasn’t right for her to be anything but smilin’, and happy, and purrin’ in contentment, and it dripped poison down his throat to know She was plum pissed.

“What the bollocks is this shite?!” she demanded, and Clyde tried real hard come up with somethin’ but an unwelcome female that had followed his Angel in, beating him to it.

“Ma’am, he’s under arrest. He attacked you in public, attempted a forced mating, he’s unregistered, he assaulted twenty officers, and some haven’t regained consciences yet.”

Clyde whined again louder in subjugation. He’d done bad, and he didn’t want Her upset with him. “’Em sorry.”

His Angel snatched up his now freed hand and forced his fingers into the hair at the back of Her neck before She started shushin’ him.

“Shh, it’s alright. See, I’m right here. I’m alright.”

She wasn’t mad at him, and that was good enough for Clyde, the rest he’d fix later. He found a curl at Her nape and started alternating between curling it around his finger and pulling it straight. He had a hard time looking away from where they touched, but he saw Her smile and realized She was as pretty as She smelled, maybe even prettier.

“Ma’am you required stitches and lost a lot a blood.”

“Because those bleeding idiots tried to separate us! He reacted instinctively. He did not know what he was doing.”

Clyde growled deep at the idea of being separated and Her obvious displeasure at the idea. His hold on Her neck went tight as he steered Her to crawl up onto the bed and onto his lap, pressing Her to lay across his chest. Without the use of his other arm this was the best he could do right now.

“Ma’am you’re not allowed to…”

“I. Am. His. Mate.”

Clyde’s bones went liquid at Her declaration. He liked that, he really, really like that idea. He wondered drunkenly how She like her bacon, or books, or sunrises, or Fairs, or…

“Actually Ma’am…”

“I think it’s high time for you to git up outta here,” the first female said, no longer sad, but fierce. Clyde thought he might take a likin’ to her if she could get rid of the offendin’ female that threatened to take his Angel. ‘Sides he needed the backup right now being more one armed than normal.

Clyde spared enough attention to see the female, along with the brother/male advanced on the intruder, pushing her back until the door could be shut in her protesting face. The brother/male noisily pulled a chair in front of the door and plopped down into it before slumpin’ forward to put his face in his hands.

“Gawd, Clyde. I’m startin’ to come around to your way of thinking about that curse.”

Curse? What curse? He was completely content with the current situation. Clyde went back to ignorin’ the brother/male in favor of burying his nose into the hair a’top his Angel’s head. Her scent was clean and strong there. 

“So… you’re Sadie’s dance teacher?”

The bells of laughter from his Angel in response to the acceptable female sank into his skin and Clyde melted back into the mattress tucking his girl into his right side. Though She wasn’t in his lap any more, he liked that all of Her was against him with his arm locking Her in place.

“Yes, sort of. It’s one of the activities we do together to help calm her. I’m Rey by the way.” Her hand lifted away to wave, and Clyde hummed happily when it returned to his stomach.

“Mellie, and this here is our brother Jimmy,” the acceptable female drawled, her returned calm soothing him more.

“Ma’am.”

Clyde growled in soft warning at the brother/male for introducing himself to his girl, though it was only a reflex at this point.

“Lord, is it always gonna be like this?” the brother/male asked exasperated, his gestures wild, but Clyde was happy to see he didn’t leave his post guarding the door.

“No, no, this is a singularly unique situation and I’m sure if things had had been different, we wouldn’t be in our current, unfortunate situation. It’s quite remarkable that so many things had to go wrong for this to happen. Presenting so late as an Alpha in a place he couldn’t feel safe and meeting a potential mate all at once. It’s really no wonder he had a paddy about it.”

Clyde didn’t really understand what She was talkin’ about, but he did like hearing Her say it. Especially when her breath ghosted across his collarbone and Her accent curled in his ears. 

“I do feel badly about it. I was probably the catalyst for all of this, and I don’t even know his name.”

“ ‘m Clyde,” he drawled happy to finally have something to give her. “ ‘n you’re Rey.”

“That’s right,” his Rey told him, the smile clear in her voice. She shifted to come up on her knees beside him. He didn’t like it much, but she just took his wrist in both her hands when he tried to tuck her back where she belonged.

“Shh,” Rey shushed him as she unbuckled what was left of the restraint from his wrist. She scowled looking at the deep blue-black banding underneath. He didn’t like the frown, so he reached out to wipe the troubled look from her lips with his thumb. She smiled brightly and he really like that, then she leaned in and kissed the inside of his wrist over the worse of the bruise with that smile and Clyde really, really like that and smiled in return.

“Do you know what they gave him?” his Rey asked as she reached out to his chest. The site of her tiny hands on him took over his brain and he just enjoyed resting his chin on his chest and watched as she worked the fastenings to the straps holding his left arm immobile. It was so soothing how her dainty little fingers moved so precisely. 

“No Ma’am. After they tranqed him at the pageant they wouldn’t let us no where near him. And once he was here, they just kept shootin’ him up every time he woke even a little,” the Mellie/female said and Clyde tilted his head trying to dislodge the memory he almost could see.

“Are either of you an executor to his will or listed as a legal emergency contact so we can get his records?” His Rey had finished with the straps and started tugging at the bandages that had been underneath. “Clyde? Can you sit up for me?”

He sat up immediately almost giddy to fulfill her first request of him, ‘specially when she used his name. A coiled need tighten inside of him waiting for her next demand he could satisfy. He’d do anything to see her smile.

“Cain’t you get ‘em? You being his mate and all?” the brother/male asked and Clyde preened with the knowledge that the other male knew who she belonged to. His Rey paused in unwinding the bandages and her distress burned like bleach in his nose.

“Well, that the thing. We’re not actually mated.”

The panic was suffocating. She was rejecting him. She didn’t want him. Air rushed in and out of his lungs at a dizzying pace. His fingers wrapped themselves in her hair.

“Clyde! Clyde!” Rey/ not his Rey called to him. That was good, right? That meant somthin’, right? He just had to convince her he was good enough; the hand thing didn’t mean nothin’. He could do for her, he’d done for Mommy and Mel and Jimmy. Clyde pulled Rey to him, making her bend and twist until the back of her neck and shoulder were within reach of his mouth.

“Jesus H. Christ!”

It wasn’t Jimmy’s exclamation that stopped him. It was the series of overlapping, slightly oval shaped bruises that he could see at the edge of her collar.

Wisps of memories assaulted him.  
Going to Sadie’s pageant.  
Feeling a madding itch under his skin and in his throat.  
Hugging his niece and reeling over a scent that wasn’t her’s in her hair.  
His vison tunneling on a slender woman –Rey- that came to pull on Sadie’s pigtail.  
Rey smiled up at him and the room became too crowded, too loud, too EVERYTHING.  
Out, Now, Safe his only thoughts lifting Her up against his chest and runnin’.  
Then they were in a dark place, his back against the wall to face the door.  
Rey stroking his face and neck, her voice drowned out by the noises just beyond the door.  
Then the handle rattled and pounding from the other side.  
He roared, and Rey turned from him, her shout almost as loud as his.  
She lifted her hand for the handle, and he snatched her back to safety.  
His mouth searching for the spot he knew was there, hidden.  
Rey pleading, her arms trapped to her sides by his.  
The pounding got worse; he dragged them to the ground back into a corner.  
The door banged open; he switched them; her into the corner him covering her completely.  
He spit, snarled, growled, and held on tighter as hands pulled and beat at him.  
Rey cried out, the smell of blood, and then white.

His world suddenly took on a clarity that had been absent until now. Clyde’s hand shook as he untangled himself from her chestnut hair so that he could pull her collar away. It was even worse than he thought. The skin hadn’t been broken, but obviously not due to lack of effort. Bruising bites littered Rey’s back, shoulder to shoulder, up her neck and down her spine to disappear below the collar.

Clyde pulled away horrified. He had done that. HE had done that to HER! He pushed Rey away gently and moved back from her as far as the bed and the leg restraints would allow.

“Clyde it’s alright,” Rey soothed, her hands cupping his face.

“What else?” he croaked out knowing that couldn’t have been all. It didn’t explain the blood he remembered.

“Clyde, you were under a tremendous amount of…” He pushed the soothing hands away.

“What. Else.” He bit out making eye contact for the first time and holding her hazel eyes until she submitted and pulled her gaze away.

She didn’t answer verbally, just pulled up her right sleeve showing five long lines of bruises wrapping around her upper arm and shoulder and he instantly knew that had caused it; his mechanical hand. A cold fury that he could only direct at himself was swallowing him, and he still hadn’t found the source of the blood.

“What else?”

“Clyde, don’t,” Mellie whispered as she tried to put a comforting hand on his shoulder, but he shook her off.

Rey didn’t look up; just pulled up the hem of the hospital gown he just now realized she was wearing. Her left thigh colored with crisscrossing blue-black lines. A single stitch where the tips of the aluminum fingers must have pierced her delicate skin, but one stood out from the rest. 

On the inside of her pale thigh, painted in pain he had given her, was surgical drain he had seen too many times during his deployment. A drainage tube for a wound too deep and too jagged to be sutured safely to prevent infection and heal property.

“That’s it,” Rey whispered looking up at him through the fall of her hair.

“Maybe you should go back to your room Ma’am,” Jimmy said softly and everything in Clyde rebelled at the thought of her leaving. Shame flooded him knowing that even when faced with all the harm he’d done, he still had to fist his hand in the bed sheets to keep from grabbing her to him, forcing her to stay with him.

“Go.” He saw Rey flinch, but she didn’t move from where she knelt beside him. “I said git!” he barked, but Rey only squared her shoulders, challenging his command directly.

“No.”

“Mel, get her outta ‘ere,” he demanded. When Mellie reached for her, Rey shrugged his sister off and went one step further by straddling his strapped down thighs.

“No.”

Clyde growled in warning and Rey only smiled in return. She radiated a strange mix of calm/intensity that battered against his self-loathing and shame, but if she thought she could out stubborn him, she didn’t know a Logan worth spit.

“Beggin’ your pardon Ma’am, but I don’t think Clyde can do this right now,” Jimmy reasoned and Clyde didn’t know if he was pissed or relieved for his meddlin’.

“Look, I get this is the very last thing any of you thought would be happening today, but we have to deal with this before the authorities come to take Clyde to jail.”

“I deserve it,” Clyde gritted out, the memory of her injuries choking him.

“No, you do not.” The conviction in her voice gave more weight to her stare and Clyde was forced to look away. Rey sighed deep before going on. “Didn’t any of you ever get typed when you were younger?”

“Like our blood?” Mellie asked.

“No, Designation Typed like Alpha, Beta, Omega, or neutral,” Rey continued.

“No, Ma’am round these parts you just let things happen natural. No sense wasting money on. ‘Sides there ain’t been an Alpha or Omega in Boone County since before the coal mines started,” Jimmy answered.

“What about old Henry?” Mellie asked.

“Naw, he was just regular mean.”

“Well, while I found that statistically hard to believe, I can assure you Boone County has one now,” Rey told them, leaving no room for argument. 

“I don’t get it. Wouldn’t the military have figured that out when you went in Clyde?”

Clyde shrugged more concerned with keeping his hand to himself while Rey continued to have an almost normal conversation with his sister, like she was at the salon instead of straddling him and being too warm and smellin’ so good. At this point he had wrapped his wrist and fist in the top sheet so tightly in an effort to be good, his fingers had gone numb.

“That is neither here nor there. Right now, we need to concentrate on making all of this not look like an assault.”

“But it was,” Clyde spit out feeling the sheet rip with another twist. The instinct to protect her with his presence warred with protecting her from himself.

Rey didn’t protest, but what she did do was far, far worse. She scooted forward and when he put up his newly freed left forearm in a panic to stop her, she just placed her warm, soft hands on it and pressed it down until it lay in her lap. Clyde felt himself start to hyperventilate, but she kept her hold firm and leaned forward until her forehead was resting against his chin. His eyes crossed, then closed when she rubbed back and forth ruffling the rough goatee there before continuing along his jaw until she was tucked in against his neck, cheek flat against his skin and nose nuzzling his throat.

The faster he huffed, the more of her calm he breathed in. It settled over him like a blanket, wrapping him in cotton fluff until he lay lax under Rey, his hand coming to rest on her knee because he didn’t have the strength of will to raise it higher.

A fog of rightness, peace, and contentment dragged him down into a doze. He made half of an attempt to follow the conversation around him (something about blood tests, like a whole county or sumthin’), but before long the doze deepened into true slumber and Clyde didn’t try and fight it.


	2. Don’t Say I Never Gave You Anything

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Han and Chewie doubled checked the Western Reaches and found more than the Falcon.

Don’t Say I Never Gave You Anything

Chapter 1 – The Girl I’ve Heard So Much About

He had heard the rumors of course. It was hard not to when one was chasing every report of a possible link to Skywalker’s whereabouts. But he had dismissed them as little more than embellished tales passed along from Cantina to Cantina, each iteration becoming more outlandish than the last. That was until he stood in front of her. 

She was both more and less than the gossips supposed. She was beautiful in a clean youthful way, not like the manufactured seductress in tales that she was his father’s Paramore, stealing the legendary scoundrel away from a Princess. Clear of cosmetics, jewelry and unnecessary accessories, but everything she did have was well worn, immaculately kept and fit her like she was born to them. 

Any familial resemblance to Han Solo was vastly overstated in the talk that she was potentially his father’s by-blow, termed the Rouge Queen; hair too deep and warm, her eyes held too much green, jaw too soft and feminine. Though he supposed he could see where the parallels to his father could be drawn if she routinely wore, as she did now, tan pants tucked into black boots and white shirt paired with a dark jacket like his father once had in his youth. If anything, standing there as if she owned the very ground beneath her, she more closely resembled his mother.

And right now, she seemed completely indifferent to the threat he posed, lightsaber spitting and hissing so close to her throat that the skin was stained crimson with its emanating glow even in the dappled daylight of the Takodana forest. If her hair had not been contained in the braids twisting and layered against her scalp, the plasma would have caught it ablaze at that distance.

“Where. Is. The. Map.” He hissed again, his rage at her unconcerned smile only tempered by fascination at the self-deprecating humor he could feel behind it. Her eyes were so calm, nonchalant, and so free of all the things that weighed upon him. 

Like his current mission to retrieve the map leading to Skywalker. He had no need to chase her, as she had halted almost immediately when he had found her during his search for the droid.

“Who ratted us out?,” she asked, but immediately guessed at the answer with an amused laugh. “It was Bazine wasn’t it. Should have known she was still pissed about Bespin.”

Kylo twisted his saber in place, neither coming closer or moving father from the young rouge’s neck and shoulder gaining her undivided attention when the unstable Kyber crystal squealed and screamed with the movement. 

“I imagine it’s long gone by now,” she said simply, aborting a careless shrug when the shoulder of her jacket smoldered in proximity to the plasma of his blade. “But it’s no longer necessary now that I’ve seen it.”

Kylo Ren paused to consider the probability of her statement to be a lie. To believe she knew Skywalker’s location afforded her a value she previously did not possess, however if she were bluffing to live just that little bit longer, his punishment for the failure would be nothing short of crippling in the most literal since. The girl before him went from amused detachment at his threats, to impatient with his indecision with alarming speed. 

“Come now, surely you can see for yourself if I’m telling the truth?” she mocked him. “Kylo Ren, Master of the Knights of Ren, the Supreme Leader’s personal pet. He’s surely taught you at least that.”

“I can take whatever I want,” he growled, walking forward until the cross-guard vent of his sword was as close to her throat as the blade itself. He resented being told so boldly what he knew others thought in the assumed privacy of their own minds.

“You can certainly try.”

The taunt stoked the fury within him and without a second thought he ripped into her conscience only to slide right back out again with only the barest hint her benign thoughts. It had not been a block or a push, simply a sidestep, allowing him to brush just past without harm or success. She was a Force sensitive, and of no small power or skill to so effortlessly dodge such a powerful attach. This had not been in any reports that he had seen, and surely Snoke would not have let someone like her roam free if he knew of her strength. His rage dissipated as if the breeze in the forest swept it aside like so many fallen leaves. 

He tried again, slower this time, more focused, and he could feel where an edge of a shield existed, and while it was probably not impenetrable, it was so flexible and pliable that the effort the attacker would expend to shatter it would likely leave them open to her retaliation. Without his prompting, she allowed him to pass through and on the other side he felt lessened… no, not less as if he was missing something, just unburdened of things he was not, untethered and free. 

A path was cleared for him, around things she didn’t want him to see (the hint of sea, sun and burning sand), and through things she didn’t care if he knew (she preferred water to all other drink). At the end was the memory of a BB-unit in a room with a familiar Dejarik table, an unfamiliar dark-skinned man, and Han Solo. The grizzled smuggler swept a hand over his aged face before looking into the eyes that Kylo Ren currently inhabited in this memory.

“It’s really up to you Kid. Whatever you decide, I’m with you,” his father said sounding far more tired than even his haggard face showed.

The shock of hearing his father’s voice after so many years was enough that Kylo didn’t realize he was being escorted out of her mindscape until he was outside of her shields. The encumbrance of being back in his own conscience was suffocating, and it took a moment to understand that he had not actually seen the map, but he now knew that she had.

“So, here’s the deal,” she said, using the back of her hand to slowly push his wrist holding the saber away from her. He allowed it only because he was still reeling from being outside the shelter of her thoughts and he wasn’t certain he could maintain the steady hand needed in order to not maim her with it.

“I am currently without a ship, thanks to you,” the glare she gave him was gently scolding as if it was just a minor annoyance that his arrival had caused the evacuation of Maz’s temple along with the Millennium Falcon.

“And you are currently without a map, thanks to me,” the self-satisfied grin wasn’t as irritating as it should have been, which he found to be annoying all on its own.

“It’s very simple really. We both want to find Skywalker. I want something that Luke has and you,” she paused then, seeming to consider him seriously for the first time. “And I suppose you want whatever it is your Master wants of you.”

Kylo Ren felt his hackles begin to rise at the mention of his Master’s leash upon him. A leash he had felt getting wound tighter and tighter, and that had never felt so constricting as it did in that moment.

“What is it that you propose? We run away together to this far away, unfindable place.” He had meant for the words to be mocking, but even through the modulator of his mask they almost sounded wistful.

“Nothing so romantic, or tragic,” she said with all seriousness, the playful banter gone. “I assume that the desire to find Skywalker is enough incentive to warrant my small request to retrieve what I want in exchange for taking you there.”

“And what is it you are looking for?”, he asked, genuinely curious. 

“That information is not part of the deal,” she told him tightly, and finally he felt the very first hint of unease in her otherwise unflappable demeanor. “I guide you to Luke, I get what I want, and after that it’s not really any of my business.”

The wind whipped the tendrils of hair at her temples into her eyes and just as she broke eye contact to brush it away, Kylo realized his own free hand had risen to do it for her. For that one fleeting moment everything had melted away and all that had remained was a boy looking at a girl he ached to touch. In that moment Kylo made the choice that would likely result in his death.

“By all means,” he entreated her as he deactivated his lightsaber and placed on his belt. “Lead the way.”

Her hand still holding her hair in place as the breeze continued to try and take it from her, she tilted her head ever so slightly regarding him. Kylo swept his open palm back behind him towards the direction of his transport and waited for her move. But she didn’t reject his offer as somehow he knew she wouldn’t, and the Rouge Queen allowed him to escort her, his gloved hand a mere breath from the small of her back.

The tiny gap buzzed with an unknown energy forcing Kylo to acknowledge that he had not accepted this unlikely alliance to kill the last Jedi as his Master wished, but for the slightest chance that maybe, just maybe, he’d get a chance touch her before he was forced to destroy her.


	3. All for One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo will find that the Dark

All for One

 

Chapter 1 - That Deep Dark Place

 

 

Kylo Ren sat passively as his Knights knelt before him on single bended knee.  They were not the entirety of the Knights of Ren.  The Knights in front of him now were not even the totality of those that had followed him from the ashes of Skywalker’s temple, but they _were_ the only ones he would trust. 

 

In the beginning, the Knights of Ren had been a sect created by Snoke as his personal shadow assassins.  Only Snoke had known how many he had enslaved in total, either willingly or under the fallacy that their will had been their own, or how many had been left after the First Order had attained its current, uncontested status.  Despite Kylo’s own relatively known association with the Order, and Snoke in particular, it was not common knowledge that in the early years of the First Order’s rise, the Knights had traveled secretly with various elements of the fledgling military group as the Supreme Leader’s spies.  Most that cared to speculate, believed that the Knights were solely a creation and a force beholden to Kylo alone.  It was an assumption that the new Supreme Leader neither acknowledged nor denied.

 

To anyone who didn’t know him, Kylo Ren may have appeared bored or disinterested as he sat upon the dais.  It would have been an easy assumption to make with the way he was slightly slumped forward, elbow on the arm of his throne with his chin in the grasp of his thumb and forefinger, his eyes casted softly in the middle distance between himself and his Knights across the room.  The distance his Knights observed was for show, as were the pleasantries they spoke aloud.  Kylo Ren’s silence was for his own survival.

 

“Supreme Leader,” Brakob began, “I regret to inform you that our missions have not, as if yet, been successful.”

 

 _We have suspicions and rumors but no hard evidence of a coup._ Kylo felt the frustration intertwined with the thought he plucked from Brakob’s willing mind.  All his Knights were similarly easy to read, and in Austell’s case, his anger and resentment was a living thing that thrashed painfully against Kylo’s consciences.  His Knights’ thoughts and emotions were a buffer against the yawning precipice that was a hole inside him and he clung to it like a lifeline.

_If the Resistance lives, they have completely gone to ground_.  Walgar supplied next, although Kylo could sense that the most placid of his Knights felt it was only a matter of time until he found them.  But Walgar was nothing if not self-assured of his own abilities.  Thoughts of the Resistance brought _Her_ forefront in the Void Snoke’s death had left.

 

_\--It was I that bridged your minds.--_

 

The lie gave an unexpected welling of strength within him, even as the hollowness inside from his Master’s presence tried to erase her spark from his very being… and failed completely. 

 

Sliding his eyes to focus squarely on his Knights, Kylo took in their staged civility, a holdover from the days of Snoke.  Kneeling before their Supreme Leader, head bowed, helmets and masks obscuring their features…

_\--…creature in a mask.--_

_\--You don’t need that.--_

_\--Take that ridiculous thing off.—_

 

Kylo had to work to keep the involuntary twitch in his jaw from forming into a full sneer.  How many cycles had it been?  A hundred… two-hundred… a thousand since the yawning silence inside his head began with Snoke’s death.  A silence that made him question how many thoughts had even been his own; made him question his own sanity.  There had been a time he would have rejoiced to have this peace, but a rational part of him knew that it was false.  It wasn’t peace he felt, but a vacuum devoid of _everything_.

 

_\--I’ve given everything I have to you.  To the Dark Side.—_

_\--You failed!--_

 

“Leave us.”

 

Even though he had spoken softly, and had not had a single outburst since Crait, Kylo noted the urgency with which the ‘Troopers left, no doubt if not personally aware of the violence of his past displeasure, they were privy to its aftermath. 

 

The door was not even half closed before Austell was on his feet and storming towards the dais.  He did not make it more than a few strides before Walgar halted the raging Knight mid-step.  Kaibet and Dastobi, ever the rational and calm pair, whether they were Padawan or Knight, released surveillance suppressors to fly their way to opposite sides of the room cloaking them from any mundane form of observation.  Once the room was secured, Walgar released his hold and Austell came barreling forward as if he had not been stopped in the first place.

 

“Why are we even bothering with kriffing evidence?” Austell demanded, jerking the helmet from his head and throwing it at the feet of his Supreme Leader.  Kylo Ren grinned humorlessly, wondering how differently things would have turned out if he had done the same to his Master.  “Let’s just end the General and be done with it!”

 

“Yes, let’s just waltz onto the bridge, and strangle the little ginger git,” Walgar snarked back, tugging on the fabric under his greaves like the proper pompous lord he should have been, his biting playfulness an aspect Kylo had long thought lost when the older man had endured the trials of becoming a Knight of Ren.  “That plan certainly won’t turn into a pile of Bantha dung.”

 

“There is no one on this ship that could stand in our way,” Austell continued, the passion and fire in his green eyes reminding Kylo of a set of dark hazel eyes that could burn to the heart of anything she set her mind to.

 

_\--We’re not done yet.--_

 

Kylo did react then… _feel_ then, and his Knights payed him slightly more attention than they had previously, waiting hopefully for _something_ to happen.  Kylo breathed in deeply, the hand on the arm of his throne tightening painfully.   Desperate to not to lose himself, he fought the urge to call back the memory of the last words spoken directly to his mind as the loading ramp had closed between them.  They were the only words ever spoken between them mind-to-mind without the benefit of voice and it had been the last time he had seen her, or truly felt her presence, other than that small glow of her existence in the Force.  In the first days after Crait, the only way he could keep moving, functioning was replaying her voice.

 

Her words rang in his memory like a Kyber crystal singing in its Master’s loving hand.  Another deep breath, and Kylo’s other hand clenched painfully to pull him back from the edge of his berserker rage.

 

At first the fury those words had evoked within him had been the fuel he had used to whip Hux into a frenzy to find the remaining Resistance.  Though the General had never needed too much encouragement in that department.

 

He had convinced himself that she, the last Jedi, was a threat.  That killing all of them was his only recourse.  Every part of him had been bleeding out from soul to skin.  But that lie was hollow, then and now, because there could be no end to his need of her now that it had begun.

 

Then, after it had become painfully obvious that the Millennium Falcon had disappeared out of his life **_again_** , her words had become a promise of return.

 

Where was she?  Somewhere… Anywhere… Nowhere… Had she even existed at all?  Some nights he just stared at himself naked in the mirror.  Cataloging again and again marks she had placed upon him.  Face, neck, chest, shoulder…  Face, neck, chest, shoulder…  Face, neck, chest, shoulder… soul.

 

Then slowly the _words_ stopped echoing, and the _feeling_ conveyed with them started filling the void Snoke had left. 

 

The Threat, the passion _\--We’re not done **yet**.-- _

 

The Promise, the compassion _\--We’re **not** done yet.-- _

 

The Force forsaken hope! _\-- **We’re**. Not. Done. Yet!-- _

 

And Kylo Ren took those feelings and twisted them anyway he had needed to feed the Dark, to survive, to fight; just like his Master had taught him.  But the sound of those crystal chimes in her voice never changed. 

 

“I’ll take the starboard,” Kaibet volunteered flippantly, pulling Kylo from his spiraling thoughts.  Kaibet’s attempt at distraction, grounding the Supreme Leader, was so clearly obvious that it broke through to Kylo with ease.

 

“Port,” Dastobi replied, removing his face mask revealing a midnight complexion and silver eyes. “Walgar can take aft.”

 

“Doesn’t he always?” Kaibet answered, the smile heard but not seen behind the mask he had yet to remove.  “But I hope one of you knows how to pilot a Star Destroyer if we are to murder the crew.  Because you do know that is what it will take?”

 

Walgar stood stoic and without reply, refusing to participate in the childish behavior around him.  It was beneath him to acknowledge them, it always had been despite his delight of starting the infantile behavior. 

 

There had been a time BEFORE when such teasing would have produced a round of escalating ribbing until the matter was decided by who had the more unbreakable headlock, BEFORE Snoke started whispering to them, BEFORE Luke’s betrayal.  BEFORE was a dream Kylo could only half remember. 

 

That wasn’t truly accurate either, he just had a different BEFORE than the rest of his Knights.  But where to start from; BEFORE the forest, the first one or the second, or BEFORE the throne room, or maybe it was BEFORE Lieutenant Mitaka…

 

_\---The two were accompanied by a girl.—_

_\--What girl?!—_

 

“And let’s not forget that the remainder of the fleet might take exception,” Dastobi added, removing his gloves and tucking them into his belt.

 

No alert came from Dast and Kai’s seemingly infallible perimeter defense when a small maintenance access door hissed open.  The Knights scrambled to draw their weapons, Dastobi’s mask falling from under his arm to join Austell’s on the floor.    

 

At first the opening remained empty as the tension drew tight and sharp, the hum of five Kyber weapons the only sound.  Then the almost disembodied head of a white and orange BB unit slide into view from the right as if peeking into the room. 

 

Kylo pushed the strum of mild confusion from the Knights aside and flung his senses towards the astromech that had once led him to the only person to look at him with raw, innocent hope.  He searched for her despite knowing she couldn’t be there.  Kylo unfurled slowly from his throne as if trying to not frighten the droid, but he himself took a retreating step back when an all too familiar R2 unit moved in from the left loudly abashing the smaller droid for its cowardice.

 

In indifference, or more likely, outright defiance of the half dozen Dark Force users in the room that had given the BB unit pause, R2-D2 noisily rolled its way into the heart of them.  It even performed a somewhat wide circle between the Supreme Leader and his Knights, forcing more room for itself among them, all the while berating the droid still half hiding in the maintenance hallway.

 

“They can’t be the same kriffing droids?” Austell whispered, his Kyber axe lowering in astonishment.

 

“Do you really think that there exists a possibility that they’re not?” Brakob asked in return, his saber unwavering as if the astromech posed a credible threat.

 

“How did they get here?” Kaibet asked, clearly troubled that the droids had somehow circumvented his and Dastobi’s security measures.  “They can’t have done it alone.”

 

“Oh, they had a little bit of help,” a voice behind the Knights supplied jovially, diverting all attention, save the droids, in his direction.  “But I wouldn’t tell R2 that.  He doesn’t like being reminded that he does have certain limitations.”

 

The pale blue figure, looking very much like the holo projections of previous generations stood tall, arms casually clasped in front of him with no robe to obscure them from view.  The exact color of his attire was not discernible, but it was clearly something so dark as to be essentially black.  In its day, the outfit would have been remarked as looking unusually “aggressive” for a Jedi, even during the Clone Wars, however it was very distinctly Anakin Skywalker.

 

“Hello, Grandson.  We have a lot to talk about.”


End file.
